Fees

FEES RELATING TO YOUR INITIAL PLAN

We take your estate or business plan seriously because weknow the importance of proper planning. Collectively we haveprepared and/or helped administer more than 10,000 plans over theyears. Problems tend to be much more prevalent in those cases wherelittle or no planning was done.

Often the client perceives a visit to our office as "going to thelawyer to have Wills prepared." Please understand that while thepreparation of documents is an important and integral part of theprocess, it is just that ­ part of the process. You could obtain fill­in theblank forms from the internet. Often the most challenging aspect of theplan is how are you going to provide for your beneficiaries whilemitigating estate taxes and protecting your property from creditors,while keeping the property in the family. Do you have a child with aresponsibility, creditor or marital problem? A son­in­law or daughter-in­law that you have concerns about? Who owns what property (i.e., isit separate or community property)? Who will manage your property ifyou become incompetent for any reason? How will these issues behandled based on the Internal Revenue Code and state law? Carpentershave a saying, "Measure twice, cut once." This applies to your plan.Before we can even begin the drafting, the most critical service weprovide is working with you to determine the best estate plan designbased on your particular desires and circumstances. We prepare manyestate plans for other lawyers who have access to forms but do not havethe expertise to design the plan and draft the documents.

Our education, training and experience allow us to do this foryou. We restrict our practice to only estate and business planning sowe can focus and concentrate on staying up with the law in these areas.We attend educational seminars, write articles and speak on thesematters so that we can be in a position to give you the best advice.Please note that sometimes there are situations where there are noperfect solutions (i.e., a grown child that cannot handle money or achild with an unstable marriage); however, we will provide you withwhat we consider to be your best options.

At the first meeting, we will discuss estimated fees based onwhat may be done for you. For most plans there will be an hourly feefor conferences. This will consist of "engineering" time to determinethe design followed by a set document fee to actually draft thedocument. The set document fee is subject to adjustment if the clientcontacts us after we have drafted the documents with changes theywish to make. This "change order" charge is normally going to bebilled hourly. Typically there will be conference(s) to go over the planand documents to execute. Depending on the plan chosen, there maybe other action items we need to take to implement the plan, and if so,we will address how those will be billed. Most of our clients arecareful with spending money on legal fees, and we are aware of that.We sincerely design the plan to achieve the client’s desires in the mostefficient manner from a legal and accounting fee point of view in lightof the potential tax savings. It is extremely important that once yourplan is complete that you maintain it. That means updating yourpowers of attorney every three to five years and reviewing your planevery few years to ensure it still meets your objectives.

We look forward to having an opportunity to allow us torepresent you and save you the excessive expenses which are incurredwhen one overlooks planning one’s estate or business affairs.